


More Time Than We Have

by incineratethelimes



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post Reichenbach, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 21:01:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incineratethelimes/pseuds/incineratethelimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He always knew it would be this garden, this peaceful paradise in which the grass grew thick and the flowers fragrant. He wonders if John knew it too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Time Than We Have

It was twilight in the garden and the birds were soaring overhead, inky black against the soft blue of the sky. Sherlock was looking at the seed pods of the poppies that had already flowered, with fallen petals littering the ground. Just looking, just inspecting. He reached out to squeeze one between his fingers; it was firm and green and everything he wished he could be for John. It was then that he felt John’s presence behind him. He felt it in every cell of his body, just like he could feel the life in the poppies, pulsing softly through the unseen web of living creatures. Sherlock felt the warmth radiating against his elbow; John was standing next to him on his right, silently studying the flowers too.

“Are you allowed to be out here?” Sherlock asked; his head was still pointed towards the flowers, but he wasn’t focusing on them any more. Sherlock furrowed his brow at the lapse of concentration John’s presence brought with him. Strangely it did nothing to disturb the lazy atmosphere of this secret haven.

“I don’t know,” his voice was soft and subdued in the heavy midsummer’s air. His head lifted from where he was watching the edge of his shoe scuff the bare stone of the patio and up to where an aeroplane was tracing a journey through the dusky blue. Sherlock turned his head to his right to see the line of his jaw, the slope of his neck, the soft pieces of hair moving in the breeze.

The floor was sapping the heat out of Sherlock’s socked feet; he noticed that when John’s warm hand brushed his wrist. He turned his head back to the flowers and closed his eyes as he felt the Goosebumps wash over him. John must have thought about what he could do to make Sherlock shiver, wondered exactly where to touch him that would make him gaze down at the response of his skin.

But where would you find the time to pick out these details?

Where had he observed and processed, always learning from Sherlock?

Sherlock knew where.

In the garden. This garden, where John is, where time slows down, where he takes the time away from you. Makes you want him to take the time away from you.

“John, what’s the time?” Sherlock glances round and looks at him, refusing the fluttering in his stomach. For some reason the answer meant so much, after all these months. This question felt like a test, to prove that he will win for Sherlock, carry on through whatever is thrown at him and always, always succeed. In a way, this is how the whole thing started.

“Does it matter?” He meets Sherlock’s cool eyes, “Sherlock?” he asked almost desperately, searching for the reaction reflected on his face.

But John sees, and yet does not observe; Sherlock could hold his reply suspended in time until neither of them could bear it any longer, was able, always able to hide things from him.

“No,” Sherlock said, and took John’s hand; hiding doesn’t matter any more.


End file.
